Venezuela slammed for seeking arrest of president’s rival

Venezuela’s Democratic Unitary Platform opposition party on Monday criticized the county’s government for issuing an arrest warrant for its presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros’ government had failed to publish any documentary proving that Maduro won Venezuela’s recent presidential election, the Unitary Platform said. Venezuelan opposition politician María Corina Machado shared an image of the arrest warrant online.

Instead of abiding by a legal requirement to prove its victory, Maduro’s administration issued an arrest warrant for González, the candidate that rightfully won the election, the Unitary Platform said. Most of the country voted in favor of political change, the party claimed. And the arrest warrant is an attempt to abridge the political rights of the more than 8 million voters who supported González, the party added.

What are other countries saying about the arrest warrant? Costa Rica, Argentina, Panama, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Uruguay all issued a joint statement condemning González’s arrest warrant. The arrest warrant is merely an attempt to silence the González’s political speech, the countries said. It disregards millions of Venezuelan’s political speech and amounts to political persecution, the joint statement added.

Has the United States said anything about this? Maduro must quit harassing opposition voices, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday. The United States and it’s partners were considering a range of options for responding to the situation, Miller added. Maduro’s government does control all government institutions and has long received criticisms for skewing elections in their favor, the U.S. State Department previously reported. Extrajudicial—and often arbitrary—killings, enforced disappearances, and torture also plague the country, according to the State Department.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report in The Sift about how Maduro banned the social media platform X in Venezuela for more than a week earlier this year.